Introduction
Rwanda WebQuest: Introduction
As a direct result of The Holocaust, the term "genocide" was contrived to describe "the deliberate and systematic destruction , in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group." In the April of 1994, one of the most intensive killing campaigns in human history erupted in the Central African country of Rwanda. Over the time span of a hundred days, approximately 800,000 Tutsis were killed by Hutu militia using clubs and machetes.
Task
This WebQuest is designed to help you grasp the complex factors that led to this atrocity, understand its long-lasting impact on Rwanda,as well as the world. Complete the various activities in the webquest to determine what is truly justice.
It is the year 2001 and the Genocide in Rwanda has been over for 7 years. Following the tragic slaying of over 800,000 Tutsis, the Rwanda justice system has been prosecuting the active participants through Western-style courts, where individuals receive a trial by jury and a jail sentence. Considering the hundreds of participants and the horrific nature of their offenses, it has become quite clear this method is inefficient and fails to address the key issues: a divided population and a physically destroyed nation. The authorities have decided to hold traditional community courts known as gacacas. Gacacas will take place outdoors, the judges will be called "People of Integrity," and the audience will comprise of local residents who have the right to object to any proceedings.
Process
1. Click on the following links and complete the videos and questions.
https://edpuzzle.com/media/58efbc99a77e2d278922dea0
https://edpuzzle.com/media/58efc009edc0714d8effbb0c
2. Google the term "gacaca justice system." Define this term.
3. Imagine you are a member of the gacaca. Read the memories of the soldiers given below. Then, you decide what is justice. What should happen to them? Explain your reasoning.
Case #1: Elie is a 30 year old Hutu woman who was 23 at the time of the genocide. Her job was to supervise captured Tutsi women.
ELIE: The club is more crushing, but the machete is more natural. The Rwandan is accustomed to the machete from childhood. Grab a machete – that is what we do every morning. We cut sorghum, we prune banana trees, we hack out vines, we kill chickens.
Even women and little girls borrow the machete for small tasks, like chopping firewood. Whatever the job, the same gesture always comes smoothly to our hands. The blade, when you use it to cut branch, animal, or man, it has nothing to say.
In the end, a man is like an animal: you give him a whack on the head or the neck and down he goes. Only young guys used clubs. The club has no use in agriculture, but it was better suited to their way of trying to stand out, of strutting in the crowd. Same thing for spear and bows: those who still had them could find it entertaining to lend them or show them off.
Case #2: Ignace is a 42 year old man who was 34 at the time of the genocide. He was previously an impoverished Hutu farmer.
IGNACE: Killing could certainly be thirsty work, draining and often disgusting. Still it was more productive than raising crops, especially for someone with a meagre plot of land or barren soil.
During the killings anyone with strong arms brought home as much as a merchant of quality. We could no longer count the panels of sheet metal we were piling up. The taxmen ignored us. The women were satisfied with everything they brought in. They stopped complaining.
For the simplest farmers, it was refreshing to leave the hoe in the yard. We got rich, we went to bed with full bellies, we lived a life of plenty. Pillaging is more worthwhile than harvesting, because it profits everyone equally.
HIS WIFE: “He came home often. He never carried a weapon, not even his machete. I knew he was a leader, I knew the Hutus were out there cutting Tutsis.
With me, he behaved nicely. He made sure we had everything we needed. Actually, he was steeped in bad politics but not in bad thoughts. He was gentle with the children. I did not want to ask him about the trouble that was spreading everywhere. To me, he was the nice man I married.”
IGNACE - "Some hunted like grazing goats, others like wild beasts. Some hunted slowly because they were afraid, some because they were lazy.
Some struck slowly from wickedness, some struck quickly so as to finish up and go home early to do something else. It was each to his own technique and personality.
Me, because I was older, I was excused from trudging around the marshes. My duty was to patrol in stealth through the surrounding fields. I chose the ancestral method, with bow and arrows, to skewer a few Tutsis passing through. As an old-timer, I had known such watchful hunting since my childhood."
Case #3: Pio is a 65 year old man who was 58 at the time of the genocide. His district was in charge of recruiting young Hutu men for the interahamwe.
PIO: We would wake up at six o'clock. We ate brochettes of grilled meat and nourishing food because of all the running we had to do. We met up in town, near the shops, and chatted with pals along the way to the soccer field. There they would give us orders about the killings and our itineraries for the day, and off we went, beating the bush, working our way down to the marshes. We formed a line to wade into the mud and the papyrus. Then we broke up into small bands of friends or acquaintances.
We got on fine, except for the days when there was a huge fuss, when interahamwe reinforcements came in from the surrounding areas in motor vehicles to lead the bigger operations. Because those young hot-heads ran us ragged on the job.
PIO: We no longer saw a human being when we turned up a Tutsi in the swamps. I mean a person like us, sharing similar thoughts and feelings.
It is as if I had let another individual take on my own living appearance... This killer was indeed me, but he is a stranger to me in his ferocity. I admit and recognise my obedience at that time, my victims, my fault, but I fail to recognise the wickedness of the one who raced through the marshes on my legs, carrying my machete.
The most serious changes in my body were my invisible parts, such as the soul or the feelings that go with it. I do not recognise myself in that man. But perhaps someone outside this situation, like you, cannot have an inkling of that strangeness of mind.
Case #4: Leopord is a 19 year old Hutu man who was 12 at the time of the genocide. He led his youth district throughout the massacres.
LEOPORD: We began the day by killing, we ended the day by looting. It was the rule to kill going out and to loot coming back.
We killed in teams, but we looted every man for himself or in small groups of friends - except for drinks and cows, which we enjoyed sharing. And the plots of land, of course, they were discussed with the organisers. As district leader, I had got a huge fertile plot, which I counted on planting when it was all over.
Anyone who couldn’t loot because he had to be absent, or because he felt too tired from all he had done, could send his wife. You would see wives rummaging through houses. They ventured even into the marshes to get the belongings of the unfortunate women who had just been killed.
People would steal anything – bowls, pieces of cloth, jugs, religious images, wedding pictures – from anywhere, from the houses, from the schools, from the dead.
BIG Question to Keep in Mind: What constitutes as justice?
II. Answer the following questions about Rwanda Survivors using the following links.
Frida Umuhoza
1. What happened to your family?
2. Did you know the people that attacked you and your family?
3. People often talk about the genocide as being something that happened very quickly, and it did. But the roots of it went back much further. When was the point when your family knew something bad was going to happen?
4. Do you know what happened to your attackers?
5. What was it like to speak with the man that killed your
our father?
6. Around the world, in conflicts like Syria and Central African Republic, many children are still forced to live in terror and lose their families, just like you experienced. What’s your message to those children?
7. After the trauma you have been through, what is it that makes you able to cope and forgive?
8. Have you travelled back to the house you were in that day?
9. What do you think is the one thing the world can learn from your story?
10. Josephine Murebwayire
Summarize her testimony.
11. Click on the third link and locate 3 survivors. Summarize their stories.
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=54384#.WPZTcFMrKQO
http://www.un.org/en/preventgenocide/rwanda/education/survivortestimonies.shtml
Evaluation
You will be graded on each portion of the webquest, but your major grade will come from the final project listed below.
Based on what you have learned regarding genocide and Rwanda, design a lesson using google slides, imovie, or some other visual and present the information and important details to your class. It should include information about the following:
What is genocide?
What caused the genocide?
When did this occur?
Tell the stories of two victims and two perpetrators?
What punishment did the perpetrators receive and was it adequate?
Was justice served?
Why were the Hutus told to forgive? Why is forgiveness important?
Points Available
Videos and Questions - 50 points each ---Total 100 points
Definition - 5 points
Cases - 40 points
Worksheet - 100 points
Power Point - 200 points
Total Points 445
Conclusion
NEVER AGAIN
This is the slogan repeated over and over again since the Holocaust, yet it happens again and again. Is there anyway to assure that this never happens again?